Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports spent part of Saturday at NFL Network with retired Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson, who told Silver he recently was offered a chance to rejoin his old team.

"I met (new general manager) Tom Telesco and Mike McCoy at the combine, and they asked me to come back and play," Tomlinson told Silver. "I saw (executive vice president) John Spanos at a restaurant in Indy, and he introduced me to them, and they brought it up. At first I thought they weren't really serious, but they kept talking about it, and I realized it was real.

"They said, 'You can come back and carry it 10 or 12 times a game. We'd like to have you here.' "

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Tomlinson acknowledged he didn't spend much time considering the offer.

"No, because when I made the decision to walk away, I wrestled with it long and hard, and I knew it was final," L.T. said. "Once I retired, that was it. My mind is in a different place. Mentally, going back would have been too hard."

McCoy and Telesco will field plenty of questions about this scenario when they next emerge from their bunker.

The Chargers currently have five running backs and a pair of fullbacks on the roster. None of them comes close to touching L.T.'s popularity in San Diego, but in terms of rebuilding this football team, the urge to add Tomlinson to the mix is a curious one.